Peruvenirs
by ASH Smyth
February 2024
Full inventory of souvenirs and other purchases from my trip to Lima and environs, last December.
One pair boxer shorts, canary yellow, with Benjamin Franklin's face on them, per the etching on the hundred-dollar bill
One Patagonia baseball cap (probably fake)
One book: The Royal Commentaries of the Incas, by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega
Two bags dark chocolates in butterfly and smoking pipe shapes, made by my wife and I at a Choco Museo workshop, ingredients including salt, chocolate nibs, coffee grounds, dried goldenberries, chilli powder, crushed Oreos, coconut, almonds
One handsome pink-blue-and-white checked lumberjack shirt (made in Sri Lanka)
One pair New Balance navy blue trainers
One pair royal blue suit trousers
One light blue linen shirt
Five pairs office-type cotton socks, muted colours
One poster from Paddy’s Irish Bar, Cuzco—‘the highest Irish-owned pub in the world’
One jumper, rich yellow alpaca wool
One 75g bar 100% Peruvian organic cacao chocolate (20 soles)
One 600g box Cobertura Chocovale cooking chocolate (10 soles)
One pair swimming trunks, gun-metal grey/green
Ten cigars (five Pantella, five Toro)
Four books: The Childhood of Jesus, by JM Coetzee; Life is Elsewhere, by Milan Kundera; Al Capone Does My Shirts, by Gennifer Choldenko; The Ancient Road to Canterbury: A Progress through Kent, by Robert H Goodsall
Two ties, one with a slightly squared iridescent pattern, in light purples and blues, one light blue and violet stripes, like from some dodgy special air force unit
One pair lightweight hiking trousers
One pair medium-weight waterproof trousers
One pack childishly amusing ‘Sex in Ancient Peru’ playing cards
One pair navy blue slim fit chinos (W33 L32; 2% elastane)
One pair black ditto
Two books: The Nothing, by Hanif Kureishi; Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces, by Michael Chabon
One fridge magnet rendering of Marcos Zapato’s Last Supper, feat. Jesus and the apostles eating a guinea pig
One pair black shoes (suede finish), size EUR 44
One white ‘Oxford’ shirt
Two more fridge magnets, in the shape of miniature (filled) bottles... that also serve as bottle openers: one Cusqueña Dorada Golden Lager and one Inca Kola
One tin black Santiago shoe polish (but bought in Lima)
One jacket in a shade that will immediately prompt comments from my mother regarding a particular flamboyant former member of the British parliament with an over-publicised interest in steam trains
Two books: Los jefes / Los cachorros, by Mario Vargas Llosa; Poesía completa, by Jorge Luis Borges
